In Sarah Bowman’s book “Fundamentals of role-playing” she talks a lot about the types of player you find in games. But there isn’t much discussion on the types of GMs. In my imagination I see her doing a follow up, as if this were the players handbook and the next one the dungeon master’s guide. Many people don’t realize that there are truly different types of Game Master, as each has their own style. As they get better the GMs start to blend elements together but they all start with a specific strength. A good GM is fair and cruel. They make you work for that reward and they don’t try to kill you but only marginally try to save you.
Bellow are the extreme examples I’ve seen or even been guilty of. But I try to stay balanced across a few at any given time.
The Monty Haul
This is the GM who gives you everything right away. When you kill an enemy knoll ranger he always has a +2 Long Bow and +1 Short Sword with Magical Leather Armor that you can instantly equip. New players to any game, or new players in general, love Monty because he personifies instant gratification. In just a few sessions you can go from lvl 1 Rogue with a dagger and padded armor to a lvl 5 Rogue with +4 Studded leather and a dagger that does x6 critical damage on a 15-20 Sneak attack. The problem with this GM is that you can get bored quickly as a GM and player. What this GM can do to improve is ebb and flow the rewards. After realizing they are giving away the bank, they can find a way to take that bank away or suddenly add on new responsibilities. If they are sitting on a huge pile of gold the nearest king can show up and demand HUGE taxes.
The Mini G
This is the GM who loves to break out the Reaper Minatures and usually has an erasable mat. This GM is great because you can see exactly what is where and it’s hard to get confused about what’s going on in battle because you know exactly who’s standing and where they are. The problem usually comes when, already slow combat is slowed even further as we draw the room and put chairs, tables, then find half a dozen figures and place them. Often this type of GM is also a stickler for how fast you can move in combat and your line of sight to targets and in extreme cases this GM runs games that are nothing more than a series of battles punctuated with plot elements but that’s a different issue. This type of GM can improve by learning to icon things and not draw to scale. Don’t make each square a 3×3′ box and then use up half your map drawing out a 45′ clearing. We often don’t need to know how many steps it will take to get from us to the ork we just say we run that way and let the GM tells u if we’ll make it. More like Chess and less like Warhammer.
The Train Conductor
This is the GM who makes sure you have little to no options of doing anything unless it falls into the process of telling a pre-determined story. If the story requires you to go to a town then the forest on either side of the only road leading up to it will be impassible or there is nothing going on in any of the surrounding towns. This is good for new players, to some degree, who may need someone to show them what to do as they don’t know enough of the game to branch out on their own. In addition some players can have too much freedom and so structure is needed when they lack self motivation outside of just a desire to play that weekend. What this GM can do to improve is to realize the players need to be the heroes of their own story, but they need a story to be the hero of. Write adventures with flexibility but still write them with goals and details.
The TV Producer
This is the GM who treats the game like a TV show. They want to throw in surprises so they have to throw in random plot twists to keep the players from figuring things out, like the series “Lost”. New players to a game like this because everything is new to them so these sudden plot twists seem epic in scope. At some point however even the GM will have lost track of what the original goal was. What this GM can do to improve is keep a log of all the plot elements and review them now and again. At some point it’s going to be necessary to trim things that just aren’t working but know that your players have no idea what you were planning so if you drop something that’s just “too much” it won’t matter as they didn’t know it was there in the first place.
The Non-Player
This is the GM who still wants to be a PC so they introduce a powerful NPC to the story. This primary NPC is often far more powerful than the players and set up in a position of power or importance to the story. A nice Paladin or Fighter Mage who has just the perfect combination of feats to allow him to spell cast in chain mail is a great example and easy to achieve since the GM made them with this goal in mind. Players new to a game will actually welcome this Non-Player as both a template to aspire towards as well as someone to cling to as a fledgling. Players tend to develop their character organically so it’s nice for them to see someone focused and streamlined. However, the players need to be the star of the show and not the side kicks of the adventure. At some point the non-player needs to get rid of their own character and force the players to stand on their own two feet.
the Die Slayer
This is usually a GM who’s really good at rolling dice, so good in fact that they will roll to do maximum damage while you end up failing the roll needed to save your character. When this happens the Die Slayer has no guilt over the fact that the dice wanted your character to die and will continue the game while you make up a new character. On the one hand it’s good to instill some fear in your players when it comes to possible character deaths, but if a player has more than one character die per game session some contingencies have to be made. This GM tends to run combat heavy games, much like the Mini G. For this type of GM combat equals excitement. What this GM can do to improve is to avoid combat as much as possible and realize that excitement isn’t just trying to survive a fight. When players come into a room don’t have 10 soldiers waiting for them in full armor with weapons drawn, but rather two with weapons and 8 half naked and grabbing improvised weapons. In the end no one is going to talk about the time their character barley killed 5 thieves on an old road but they will remember a half naked soldier hitting them with a thrown wine goblet.
I can honestly say I’d been there with just about all of these, but I quickly learned that it really didn’t matter what kind of GM I was. Truth be told, players want to play and they need a GM for that. Each GM has a focus or an edge over the others. If you didn’t have a touch of the Mini G at all, complex fights and large battles would become confusing and hard to follow. If you didn’t have any elements of Monty Haul you’d have high level characters trying desperately to afford a warm meal and a weapon that worked. Lean from others and learn from yourself, but adapt and evolve.
I’ve been told I’m one of the best GMs some players have had – but lets be honest, it’s not like there is a big pool of GMs that players get to choose from. Still, I try to see what works and fix what doesn’t. In my current Shadowrun game I’m trying to fix a few things that didn’t work, but I can say I tried. At least my players are still coming back so that’s something.